This Digital Government Review of Türkiye explores how the Government of Türkiye can use digital technology and data to help the public sector become more responsive, resilient and proactive. It evaluates the efforts made so far by Türkiye in achieving digital government maturity by looking at governance, institutional capacities, digital skills, public service design and delivery, enabling building blocks and the strategic management and use of data. The review provides policy recommendations intended to help the Government of Türkiye fully benefit from digital technologies and data to realise the potential of the digital age in transforming the public sector and the services provided to the public.
Digital Government Review of Türkiye
Towards a Digitally-Enabled Government
OECD Digital Government Studies
Abstract
Executive Summary
The Republic of Türkiye recognises that using digital technology and data to help the public sector become more responsive, resilient and proactive contributes to national competitiveness and economic growth. The introduction of a presidential system in 2018 placed greater importance on this objective and the Digital Transformation Office (Dijital Dönüşüm Ofisi, DTO) of the Presidency of Republic of Türkiye was created to provide a strong foundation for transitioning from e-government to digital government.
Robust governance is crucial for embedding digital transformation throughout the public sector and the DTO enjoys strong support from the highest leadership of the country as well as the respect of organisations throughout the country. The new national digital government strategy will provide an opportunity to build more effective institutional capacity by setting out an ambitious vision, defining priorities, and establishing clear responsibilities for achieving comprehensive change.
Leadership for digital government needs to be distributed throughout the public administration. While Türkiye benefits from existing digital capabilities and established technical practices, the public sector workforce as a whole needs ongoing investment in order to maintain its 21st century skills. It is also critical for managers to foster operational environments that enable continuous learning and provide flexibility to attract digital talents and encourage them to reach their full potential.
The digital age presents both opportunities and challenges for how the design and delivery of public services can contribute to building trust and reinforcing democracy. In Türkiye, the recognition of technology and data as enablers for better understanding users and responding to their needs, is reflected in the activities of a number of public sector organisations. These inspirational pockets of good practice can be a model for developing a user-driven, inclusive and proactive culture across the whole of government for meeting the needs of all users, be they from the administration or the public at large.
The government of Türkiye has successfully established a range of building blocks and technical solutions for digital transformation. These include türkiye.gov.tr, the e-Government Gateway, providing a focal point for services that work seamlessly across organisational boundaries as well as a digital identity solution that is increasingly ubiquitous. The wider ecosystem of enablers for supporting public service design and delivery would benefit from consolidating guidance, providing clear standards about assessing quality and adopting an omni-channel perspective to ensure that digital transformation efforts do not contribute to digital exclusion.
Finally, the Government of Türkiye has a strong understanding of data as a strategic asset and the importance of ensuring its security. The country now needs to augment its existing data governance approaches with clear leadership to set out a vision, develop a comprehensive strategy, and co-ordinate different stakeholders. Such leadership would help establish the necessary data infrastructure and practices for the use of data by the Turkish public sector to positively contribute towards public trust.
Key policy recommendations
Strengthening governance to deliver digital government
Maintain a strong political will and make the best of the centralised administrative model to drive the digital government agenda further.
Leverage the broader digital transformation of the Turkish economy to foster the effectiveness of governing digital government.
Empower the Digital Transformation Office (Dijital Dönüşüm Ofisi, DTO) as the organisation-in-charge of driving the digital government agenda across the public sector.
Strengthen the co-ordination and co-operation mechanism to engage all relevant stakeholders across government.
Establishing institutional capacity to implement digital government
Support the development and implementation of a dedicated digital government strategy in order to transform ambitious plans into concrete actions at the whole-of-government level.
Strengthen the use of common policy levers including business cases, project management, procurement of ICT/digital projects and financial management tools to facilitate steering and co‑ordination of digital investments across the public sector by the DTO.
Improve the legal and regulatory framework to anchor digital transformation efforts and support the transition from e-government to digital government.
Embedding digital skills and capability in the public sector
Create a work environment in the public sector that includes better communications, a flatter organisational structure to promote faster and better decision-making, more collaboration opportunities, a learning culture and more flexible working policies.
Ensure that public servants at all levels – including in leadership positions – develop the adequate digital literacy and confidence to lead a successful digital transformation.
Set up a recruitment strategy to attract the necessary digital talents and offer a transparent reward system, professional growth and mobility opportunities, while building a work environment to accommodate these changes.
Creating user-driven value in proactive public service design and delivery
Recognise the political, organisational, technical and societal context within which public service design and delivery takes place and use those insights to shape a tailored response to the needs and priorities of individual organisations to achieve transformation.
Embrace the opportunities of digital transformation to create a more proactive and user-driven culture within the Turkish public sector.
Cementing building blocks and shared services for improved capabilities
Revise the governance processes for funding and assuring the quality of public service design and delivery.
Clearly define an inclusive approach to providing access to public services that accounts for the relationship between analogue and digital experiences and seeks to minimise digital divides, recognise accessibility needs and champion digital inclusion.
Encourage the use of shared building blocks and common resources as part of the curated Government as a Platform ecosystem.
Moving towards a data-driven public sector
Define and strengthen the leadership and vision for establishing a data-driven public sector in Türkiye.
Support institutions in applying data to generate value by establishing communities of practice, investing in training and resources, defining standards for data sharing and incentivising data application.
Commit to the trustworthy management and use of data in the public sector by promoting the role of ethics, transparency, privacy and security.
